Welfare benefits for the Boston bombers

It should come as absolutely no surprise to learn that the Boston bombers received welfare benefits. Food Stamp Nation is one of the largest nations on Earth; something like one in six Americans are currently on the dole. In Britain, which is considerably further down the socialist death spiral, most terrorists turn out to be welfare recipients. That’s one of the reasons they have time on their hands to get radicalized and plan mayhem. One fire-breathing imam in the U.K. urged his followers to think of welfare benefits as a form of the jizya tax non-believers are supposed to pay Muslims – or, as he put it, “a Jihad Seeker’s Allowance.”

State officials confirmed last night that Tsarnaev, slain in a raging gun battle with police last Friday, was receiving benefits along with his wife, Katherine Russell Tsarnaev, and their 3-year-old daughter. The state’s Executive Office of Health and Human Services said those benefits ended in 2012 when the couple stopped meeting income eligibility limits. Russell Tsarnaev’s attorney has claimed Katherine — who had converted to Islam — was working up to 80 hours a week as a home health aide while Tsarnaev stayed at home.

In addition, both of Tsarnaev’s parents received benefits, and accused brother bombers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan were recipients through their parents when they were younger, according to the state.

The news raises questions over whether Tsarnaev financed his radicalization on taxpayer money.

Is that really a “question” at this point? It is, at any rate, a question the government doesn’t seem eager to answer, beyond offering assurances that Tamerlan wasn’t actually collecting welfare benefits at the time of the Boston Marathon bombing:

The state did not say when the Tsarnaevs began receiving benefits. But Health and Human Services spokesman Alec Loftus said the Tsarnaevs “were not receiving transitional assistance benefits at the time of the incident,” a reference to the marathon bombing that killed three and injured 260.

Loftus declined to specify what kinds of benefits and the amount of benefits the family received.

Their taxpayer-funded status came to light last night after repeated calls and emails to welfare officials from the Herald. They refused to comment throughout the day, but pressure mounted last night when the Herald started asking lawmakers whether the Department of Transitional Assistance should release the information.

These bureaucrats should not be allowed to “decline to specify” anything. The taxpayers who provided these benefits to the terrorist and his family have a right to know exactly what benefits were dispersed. We have the right to take this information into account when we cast votes to shape our social welfare programs. The people who fund the welfare state still have some say over its actions, don’t they?

Despite collecting welfare benefits through 2012, Tamerlan somehow found the money to drive a C-class silver Mercedes-Benz, according to Bloomberg News, and “when he wasn’t wearing workout gear, he chose ‘boisterous, fancy clothes.'” One of the pictures in the 2009 photo essay featuring Tamerlan, “Will Box For Passport,” shows him walking from his Mercedes to the Wai Kru Mixed Martial Arts center where he trained.

The generosity of the American welfare state doesn’t seem to have won much gratitude from Tsarnaev’s mother Zubeidat, who was busted for stealing $1600 in designer clothes from a department store last year. She lives in Dagestan these days, but might be arrested for skipping her court date if she returns to the U.S. to visit her surviving son, Dzhokar, in the hospital.

She still thinks her sons were somehow framed for their crimes by the government, telling CNN in a phone interview last night: “If they are going to kill him. I don’t care. My oldest son is killed, so I don’t care. I don’t care is my youngest son is going to be killed today. I want the world to hear this. And, I don’t care if I am going to get killed too. And I will say Allahu Akbar! (Hat tip: Gateway Pundit.)

Zubeidat has portrayed the bombing as a “false flag” operation carried out by U.S. security services, according to the UK Daily Mail. “It’s a big show, a spectacle,” she insisted. “Americans love a show.”

The boys’ father, Anzor, is also on his way back to the U.S., where he says he will seek “justice and the truth” for his sons. He says he has “lots of questions for the police” and plans to “clear up many things.” Sadly, it doesn’t seem as if our welfare programs purchased much in the way of civic pride, gratitude, or humility from these folks.